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Forum:I think we could stand a different logo
I appreciate the one we have, but I don't think it's as effective at keeping out the know-it-alls as it could be. TR 20:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC) :What did you have in mind? I'd like to see something emblematic of AH, but it's hard to come up with an image that could serve as such. Something like the Best AH Stories of the 20th Century cover art, perhaps? :I'll tell you how I first discovered AH, and it involves a picture: Neil Armstrong (though of course you can't tell it's him under all that astronaut suit, which is also how Ohio was legally able to issue its quarter) planting the Stars and Bars on the moon. The picture had nothing to do with anything in the book, which now that I've got a large base of AH experience to use as a standard of comparison I can see was very simplistic. It certainly stood out, though. :Maybe, given this, maybe we should stick a swastika on that picture? :Oh yeah, that would keep the hit-and-runners at bay, all right. They'll probably think we're skinheads. Turtle Fan 20:29, 17 March 2009 (UTC) ::Yes, I'd rather not have to prove we aren't racist on a constant basis. :::If only HT hadn't ditched the ethnic name. Then people would either be even more alarmed, assuming we were trying to discredit a good author as part of a Kulturkampf that just won't die, or realize there must be more than meets the eye here. Turtle Fan 21:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC) ::An actual HT cover would be ideal. TR 20:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC) :::It's a good idea, but how do we choose? When there are so many dozens out there, no one can claim to be an ideal spokesman. :::Perhaps the best we could do would be to go to Amazon's Harry Turtledove Bookstore and see which book has the highest sales rank. At the moment that appears to be Return Engagements, of all things. We could check back often and update each time we detect a change--except we'd fall out of the habit soon enough, not unlike with the Featured Article. Turtle Fan 21:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC) ::::I would actually nominate the British cover of Homeward Bound, which depicts a Lizard and a human (let's just imagine its Yeager) carrying an American flag. I think most people would see that and go "Wait, where the hell am I?" rather than just assume we were uneducated slobs. :::::Ah yes, the British cover of HB. I saw it one late afternoon/early evening in Singapore when I stopped into Borders and was inside a bookstore that featured primarily English language books for the first time in ten months. I would almost have made the trip just for that--though if that's all I'd wanted, Hong Kong has the same and is much closer to Seoul. Some of my fellow bookwormy ex-pats jokingly considered organizing regular field trips there. :::::Yes, that is an interesting cover. Not sure what it was supposed to be. It's almost as though the US were forcing the Lizards to hand over a treaty port. Turtle Fan 01:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC) ::::::By the way, if you want to work off the assumption that that dude is Yeager, it occurred to me we could do as we once did with Featherston and cut and paste him from the cover into the article. Turtle Fan 10:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC) :::::::I was just being flip when I wrote that. Hanging out with an alien and waiving an American flag is fairly consistent with Yeager's character, but that person is much too young to be Sam. He was seventy when he went into cold sleep, or so says the article. TR 18:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC) ::::::::True, but on the other hand, this is an HT cover we're talkng about. Turtle Fan 20:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC) ::::Looking over the cover gallery, most of the foreign covers for the Worldwar series would be great, actually. :::::They were quite good. The American ones, mixing strange bedfellows from WWII with something hi-tech, got the point across but lacked subtlety and artistry. I had fun trying to identify all the lackies in the background of the StB cover, and I don't think I ever did get them all. And for the longest time I thought Churchill's and Hitler's aides on the front of ItB were supposed to be Mussolini and Tito. Turtle Fan 01:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC) ::::::Who were those guys? I always thought the German was Keitel. Never sussed out the guy next to Churchill. ::::::It took me a while to figure out that that was Mussolini on the cover of UtB. You know, people reserve special disdain for that cover, but there really was a scene where all three men (Benito, Ike, and Einstein-that would be a good name for a rock band) on the cover were together in the book, and they were looking at a killercraft. That would probably make it one of the most accurate covers on an HT AH. TR 18:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC) ::::I do like the idea of rotating every-so-often. ::::Incidentally, I think we can take some further steps for the featured article. One would be to institute a nomination process for next month's featured article. I've seen this done elsewhere, and we could probably steal the templates necessary. TR 22:20, 17 March 2009 (UTC) :::::Sounds good to me. Otherwise each one will be up there for a long time until we remember it's there. :::::On the largest of Wikis, including Wikipedia itself, I believe there's a long list of nominees from which a winner is chosen at random automatically each day. A list of recent features aids the short-memoried and those who try to make a habit of dropping in daily but miss a visit every so often. Sometimes you can even get the feature sent to your e-mail. :::::I doubt we're big enough for that. Turtle Fan 01:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC) I suspect that the rather bland logo is the reason we were never a "wikia spotlight" project despite the comments by the wiki admin that popped by and spruced up our homepage. My feeling is that it should include a portrait of HT. My nomination would be the one from the cover of Analog that is included in the gallery in Silver's website. :-Q ML4E 20:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC) :I like the idea of using a portrait. I'd like it more if HT had a well-known and easily-recognized face, but oh well. :Crop his head over Yeager-not's on the HB cover? Turtle Fan 22:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC) I'm reviving this debate. It really would be a worthwhile change to make. I like the cover to that rather oversold Best AH of the 20th Century book. HT was the editor so it connects. It provides some iconic AH images that can broadcast "This isn't real!" I'm not sure we need a portrait of HT; we've got a huge one on the main page, and it's not like looking at his picture would tell the uninitiated anything. His is hardly an instantly-recognizable face, unless you're like us and have read countless books with that photo on the dustjacket flap or in the front matter. Turtle Fan 04:15, October 28, 2009 (UTC) :I propose making my picture, or Def Leppard's, or Gene Hunt's (UK not US) mug our TW photo. I also propose a pint of whiskey for every free man on this site who supports my proposal, yeah? Jelay14 05:47, October 28, 2009 (UTC) ::.....TF, I do like the Best AH of the 20th Century, but I think we need some additional editing/photoshopping on that to make it work. I unfortunately do not posses those skills. TR 06:00, October 28, 2009 (UTC) :::I know a bit about photo editing and I have a friend who knows a great deal more. What were you thinking we needed to do? Turtle Fan 10:38, October 28, 2009 (UTC) ::::We'd probably want to remove the title, and put in "Harry Turtledove Wiki". Another idea might be to make a sort of mosaic of various covers. I think you had something like that with the Democrats once upon a time. TR 14:43, October 28, 2009 (UTC) :::::Oh yes, that. I created it because I had too much time on my hands. Forgot why I took it down. :::::Well look at the size of the logo. If we were to make a collage containing anywhere close to enough covers to make it worthwhile, they'd each be shrunk down to a size too small to be easily visible. The problem gets even bigger if we limit ourselves to interesting covers, each of which has multiple details to be picked out. I think one iconic cover is the way to go. Turtle Fan 19:02, October 28, 2009 (UTC) :::::Ok. I nominate GotS. It's readliy associated with HT, and it makes its AH point pretty obvious. TR 20:02, October 28, 2009 (UTC) :::I'm Custer not TF Jelay14 06:01, October 28, 2009 (UTC) ::::I vote in favor of Jelay14, but if that does not work I vote for Turtle Fan's idea. Supergodzilla2090 19:27, October 28, 2009 (UTC)